Blind Multipath MIMO Channel Parameter Estimation Using the Parafac Decomposition

In this paper, we consider the problem of estimating the physical parameters that describe a multipath MIMO communication channel model characterized by specular reflections due to remote scatterers. Using the impulse response channel coefficients, we introduce a channel model based on a 3rd-order tensor structure that admits a Parafac decomposition with rank equal to the number of propagation paths. The alternating least squares (ALS) algorithm is used to estimate the channel spatial and temporal signatures and the multipath parameters are then extracted by means of MUSIC-like subspace algorithms, enabling us to recover the transmit and receive angles as well as the path propagation delays of the MIMO channel, without ambiguities. Computer simulation results are shown to illustrate the performance of the proposed ALS-MUSIC estimation algorithm.